Property: in the broad sense: includes everything that forms part of
someone’s estate = includes immovable property, movable property etc
Property: in the narrow sense: amounts to a thing – law of things:
which is a branch of private law which consists of a number of legal
rules that determine the nature, content, establishment, protection,
transfer and termination of various real relationships between a legal
subject and a thing.
DEFINITIONS
Legal subject: any person (natural/juristic) capable of acting as a
subject in legal relationships and getting rights and duties.
Legal object: every object with which a legal subject has a legally
recognized relationship – anything with regard to which a person can
get and hold a right.
Property: is everything, which can form part of someone’s estate,
including corporeal and incorporeal rights.
Thing: is a corporeal object outside the human body and an
independent entity capable of being subjected to the legal control by a
legal subject for who it has use and value.
Right: is a legally recognized and valid claim by a subject to a certain
object.
Property right: is a legally recognized claim or interest in property
Remedy: is a legal procedure provided by a legal system to protect a
right against infringement or to control the effects of unlawful action.
REAL RELATIONSHIP
This is a legal relationship between a legal subject and a thing.
A legal subject can get rights from a real relationship only if it’s lawful
– if it complies with legal rules.
A legal subject won’t get any rights from unlawful relationships.
The most NB real relationships:
a) Ownership = lawful
b) Possession: physical control of a thing with the intention of an
owner = unlawful
c) Holdership: physical control of a thing with the intention to
derive a limited benefit = lawful and unlawful
Real right: is a lawful relationship between a legal subject and a thing
which gives direct control over the thing to the legal subject, as well as
the relationship between the legal subject and other legal subjects
who must respect this relationship = its enforceable against the whole
world.
Entitlements: a legal subject who gets a real right from a real
relationship is usually entitled to:
a) Use
b) Control
c) Encumber (give others limited real rights)
d) Enjoy the fruits
e) Consume
f) Alienate
g) Vindicate
The function of the law of things
1) To harmonize various competing ownership rights – neighbor
law
2) To harmonize an owners right in regard to his thing, with the
rights of other limited real right holders to the same thing
3) It controls the acquisition and transfer of things and real rights
Sources of the law of things
a) The constitution
b) Statutory law
c) Case law
d) Common law
e) Indigenous customary law
THINGS AS LEGAL OBJECTS
Thing: is a legal object, which is an independent part of the corporeal
world, which is external to humans, subject to human control and
useful and valuable to humans.
Characteristics of a thing
a) Corporeal: perceivable to your senses – e.g. car, horse
b) External to humans: the human body cant be regarded as a
legal object
c) Independent: the thing can function as a legal object for the
purposes of the law of things, only if it has its own individual
existence and can be recognized as a distinct entity
d) Subject to human control: objects are significant for the law of
things only if they have the potential to be legally controlled by
humans
e) Useful and valuable to humans: the thing must satisfy the
needs of a legal subject. It need not necessarily have economic
value but can also have sentimental value.
CLASSIFICATION OF THINGS
NEGOTIABLE AND NON-NEGOTIABLE THINGS
Negotiable things:
1) Res alicuius: things owned by a person or things in a insolvent
or deceased estate
2) Res nullis: things capable of being owned but which at a
particular stage aren’t owned by anyone
3) Res derelictae: things no longer in the physical control of the
owners and in respect of which the owner no longer has the
intention to be owner
4) Res deperditae: things lost and no longer in the physical
control of the owner but in respect of which the owner hasn’t
lost the intention to be owner.
Non-negotiable things
a) Natural resources falling outside legal commerce which
are available for all people (air): res communes ominium
b) Things owned by the state and used for the publics
benefit (sea): res publicae
c) Things that aren’t freely negotiable for another reason
(corpse): res extra commercium
SINGULAR AND COMPOSITE THINGS
Singular things: Composite things: are made up of different
exist independently components (house)
without being 1) Principle thing: is the thing which exists
composed of independently and which can be the
particular object of a real right (land)
components 2) Accessory thing: can have a separate
(brick/tennis ball) existence apart from the composite thing,
but which has been mixed with the
principle thing to such an extent that its
lost it independence (house built on the
land)
3) Auxiliary thing: exists separately and
independently of the principle thing, but
because of its economic value or use it
can no longer be an independent thing
(key)
4) Fruits: as long as the fruit is attached to
the principal thing, its accessory to the
principal thing – the owner of the principle
thing is also the owner of the fruits. (Rent)
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